


much too far out (and not waving but drowning)

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foreboding, Intimacy, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-08 13:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: All Ben's ever wanted is to join the New Republic Navy. But training with Luke will be better for him in the long run - Poe truly believes that.





	much too far out (and not waving but drowning)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mm8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mm8/gifts).



The sun’s heat has soaked into the tarmac. It shimmers off the ground and radiates through the soles of Poe’s shoes as he crosses the landing pad towards the hangar. That’s where he knows Ben will be: hiding in the shade of the weatherbeaten awning, making a mess of the engine repairs because he’s never been able to concentrate worth a damn once the anger takes hold. It’s one of the reasons Poe can’t bring himself to disagree with the decision that’s been made. But he also can’t blame Ben for feeling the way he does – if their positions were swapped, he’d probably feel the same.

Summer is almost over, and in far too short a time they’ll both be leaving: Poe back to base to receive his next deployment, and Ben onwards to whatever adventure is waiting for him at the end of this latest family meltdown. Inside the house there’s another unviewed holomessage sitting on the kitchen counter, transmitted from Chandrila several hours ago. Out here in the hangar Ben is crouched under the wing of a battered old T-16 skyhopper, rummaging inside the engine hatch with a length of circuitry cable spooled around his wrist.

Despite the tension and the overbearing heat, Poe takes a moment to appreciate the sight before him. Ben’s borrowed shirt strains a little at the shoulder seams, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and smock front dirty with grease from the repulsors. It’s a good thing Poe doesn’t need the garment back. It’s the biggest shirt he owns, but Ben’s broad torso is broader than ever after all that time spent building fitness for a physical exam he’s never going to take.

Poe’s going to miss him like burning a few weeks from now.

‘How are those repulsors coming on?’ he asks.

‘They’re all gummed up,’ says Ben, frowning inside the hatch. ‘We need to grab some solvent next time we’re in town.’

‘There might be some in my dad’s old toolkit,’ says Poe. And then: ‘Listen, Ben, about before.’

‘Can you check the kit, then?’ says Ben. ‘I don’t like how this rotor’s moving.’

So that’s where they’re at. It’s no big surprise that he’s reluctant to talk about the fight with his parents. It’s also no surprise that the bravado he’s putting on about it is so transparent. Ben has always been self-contained, cupping his feelings close to his chest and avoiding all efforts at outside interference. But every now and then they leak, and when they do, they tend to get everywhere. This summer, the faucet has been dripping pretty much constantly.

Poe sinks down beside him and balances on the balls of his feet. The air’s a bit cooler here beneath the wing. There’s a long scratch on the underside of the hull, unsealed and unmended. Ben could spend all day down here tinkering with the engine and it wouldn’t cross his mind to bother about cosmetic damage. Attention to detail. Another crucial military virtue Ben has yet to manifest.

‘I get why you’re upset,’ Poe says. ‘Honestly, I’d be angry too. But you know … enlisted life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. People yelling orders at you 24-7. No choices, no input, no privacy. Right or wrong, your folks are only doing what they think is best for you.’

The faucet spurts. ‘They’re doing what they think is best for _Senator Organa_ ’s career,’ says Ben, and halfway through the sentence his calm voice turns vicious with a creeping edge of hysteria. The speed of the change would give Poe whiplash if he hadn’t had the best part of the last three months to get used to it. Something in Ben has been changing lately. Poe doesn’t know what it is and the uncertainty makes him queasy, but he’s doing his best to be patient. ‘Her approval ratings are dropping, and half the Senate is convinced she’s some kind of frothing warmonger. The last thing she needs is a son in the armed forces. Conflict of interest. I get it.’

Part of Poe recoils to hear Leia spoken of like that. Talk about a conflict of interest: Leia is the legendary war hero whose great deeds filled all the stories of Poe’s childhood, whose name fell from his parents’ lips like a benediction, whose face on public broadcasts earned murmurs of support and approval from everyone he knew. She’s also Ben’s mother, and the two of them fight like rathtars.

But now’s not the time for taking sides. Whatever resentments and hard feelings have been building up in Ben, they’re bigger than a few soft words from Poe can fix.

Without warning, Ben tosses the cabling aside – it’ll be hell to untangle later – and sits down hard on the ground. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is to be a pilot,’ he says. ‘Since I was a kid.’

‘You can still be a pilot,’ Poe points out. ‘There’s more ways to fly a ship than joining the Navy.’

‘Hauling freight, maybe.’ Ben’s lips curl into a sneer. ‘I want my career to fucking mean something, Poe. I want to do my part for the New Republic.’

As if Ben has ever had a political or ideological bone in his body. His disinterest has more than once struck Poe as ironic, given the stock he comes from. ‘Come on, Ben, cut the bullshit. You don’t care about the New Republic. You just want to fire laser guns and fly over the speed limit.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe. But what I _don’t_ want is to go rot on some backwater planet while Uncle Luke lectures me about the balance of the fucking Force.’

‘He might let you pilot his old X-wing.’

‘That thing’s a piece of junk. It’s worse than this old skyhopper.’

‘Now you’re just looking for reasons to feel hard done by.’

Ben looks up at him, eyes dark with anger, and for a short moment the summer heat seems to freeze over wherever it touches Poe’s skin. Those eyes don’t belong to the Ben he knows, whose quiet humour and zest for life have lit up Poe’s life since they first came together. Whose lips and hands have soothed countless hurts. Whose body has warmed Poe’s bed, sweat-slick and hungry under cover of darkness. This isn’t the Ben he dreamed of every night in the impatient months leading up to his shore leave.

Then the shadow passes, and as he watches Ben’s bravado crumple, Poe feels like the king fucking idiot. This cloud that has hung over Ben all summer, since the first clipped holomessage from his mother that upended every plan he’d ever made for his life – it isn’t anger. It’s pain. Pain and disappointment and fear for a future he’s at risk of losing sight of. Because the thing is: no matter how much they fight, no matter how he speaks about her in the heat of anger, it wouldn’t even cross Ben’s mind to disobey his mother. She says he's not allowed to enrol in the Navy, so he doesn’t enrol. She says he has to go away with Luke, so away he goes.

‘I wanted to come back with you,’ says Ben, and his massive frame seems to shrink in on itself as the deep, mellow voice Poe knows so well evaporates in his throat. What comes out is barely more than a whisper.

It’s going to be for the best in the long run, Poe truly believes that. Ben isn’t cut out for a soldier’s life. His parents know it just as well as Poe does. Poe doesn’t really understand all that shit about the Force and Ben’s supposed powers, but getting out of the crowds and learning to meditate never did anyone any harm. They’ll still see each other on breaks, and they can keep in touch over holonet in between.

Kneeling up in front of Ben, he presses a gentle kiss on Ben’s lips and then rests their foreheads together. Ben’s rough exhalation tickles his skin. He’s never really been one for hugging, outside of those rare and precious post-coital moments where he lets Poe hold his sated body close. But he doesn’t pull away from this, so Poe strokes his hair back out of his face and plants another quick kiss on the tip of his nose.

‘You don’t need to follow me into the Navy, Ben. We’re going to make time for each other no matter what, okay? We’re going to work out. Everything’s going to work out.’

Ben nods and sucks in another shaky breath. Poe breathes in the scent of him, soap and linen and engine grease, and he knows – despite the outbursts, despite the tensions, despite the uncertainty of their long separation and Ben’s scattered career plans – that he’s telling the truth.

The two of them are going to be okay.


End file.
